How to Fix Chapped Lips

How many times have you walked out of the house and forgot your lip balm? You are now the next victim of constant dry,chapped lips and are now forced to lick your lips throughout the day. Unfortunately it’s even worse to forget it on a cold day. In comparison to other parts of the face, the lips have it rough, literally, so how do you combat this problem? Chapstick to the rescue!

Lip Anatomy

Your lips play very significant roles including, assisting with food sensory, helping with unspoken language and sounds, and even in facial expressions. All of these actions require proper muscle and tissue function of the lips. According to author and “Cosmetic cop”, Paula Begoun the lips do have a layer of “skin” like the face, but it is exceptionally thin and transparent, barely covering the vulnerable mucous membrane underneath.”

What Causes Chapped lips?

According to WebMD.com “Lips have minimal to no sebaceous glands and zero sweat or oil glands, and water loss on the lips is three to ten times higher than other parts of the face or body”! Your lips are almost always exposed to all elements including climate and weather changes. There may also be other health issues such as lack of certain vitamins, and water intake that may contribute to extreme or consistently chapped lips. Using matte lipsticks or long-wearing lip paints especially in dry or cold climates or using lip plumpers that contain irritants such as capsicum pepper, menthol, menthoxypropanediol, ginger, or mint oils, all of which cause irritation can also lead to chapped lips.

The Carmex Craze

“I mostly use Carmex or NYX lipsticks to make my lips less dry and colorful,” said Brooke Smith, sophomore Early Childhood education major.

Although Carmex seems to be very popular in use to treat chapped lips, this is one of the many lip balms that is not the best to use. According to Begoun, “It contains ingredients that irritate your lips and will have you reaching for more Carmex as your lips become drier, perhaps never realizing that it’s the lip balm itself that’s contributing to the problem.”

How to fix chapped lips

There are several different remedies that are out there to not have chapped lips, but the most common is to use lip balm or chap-stick.

“I don’t use anything on my lips, I just keep them natural,” said Marcel Henderson junior marketing major.

The best thing to do to treat chapped lips is to keep your lips covered in a moisturizing lip balm or gloss. In a situation of having severe chapped lips such as extremely dry and flakey skin on your lips it’s also good to apply a lip scrub before using your lip balm.

According to Totalbeauty.com, here are some great chapstick brands to use that are also affordable: